Foch and Marquette are done

After an early start, all of the Foch and Marquette have been picked. With the great crew we had, picking went quickly.

The yellow jackets were as thick as I have seen. Except for a few brave souls, most of us wore Kevlar or coated gloves. Despite the swarms of yellow jackets no one wearing gloves got stung. Next weekend, the Frontenac.

The harvest so far. Whites are done, next the reds.

Jack spies his prey!

We harvested all of our white wine grapes on Saturday, September 8. The winery buying the grapes wanted the Lacrescent and Prairie Star.   The St Pepin and LaCrosse were also picked for home wine makers. The lacrescent sugars measured close to 24 brix on a random sampling we took while picking. The Prairie star was closer to 20. The winery ended up measuring slightly less after crushing .... probably due to grape grower sampling bias.

 The picking was great fun and everyone who picked took home a souvenir Sampson Valley Vineyard wine glass.

We are picking the red wine grapes( Foch and Marquette) this Saturday.   Foch are just about 21 brix, the Marquette are at 25.4.  If you would like to help out, and take home a free glass, send me an email, and let me know you are coming.  info@sampsonvalley.com.



We did pick about 40 lbs of red wine grapes (of an unknown cultivar that some how appeared in a white wine grape row).    The kids had a great time crushing those.